I Almost Forgot About You

by Terry McMillan

  “I’m happy to be alive and in San Francisco with you.”

  He slides into his seat and turns the corner and does not let go of my hand and pulls me down close enough to him so our shoulders touch. It’s already pretty dramatic in here, what with the purple lights and those floor-to-ceiling purple velvet drapes behind us, and the bar looks like one giant piece of stained glass the way the light shines through the bottles. On our table, which I know is mahogany, sits a three-foot cylindrical glass vase full of flowers I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

  I have to admit I’m nervous as hell. I don’t really know what I’m doing here and what I expect to come from this little fantasy that Wanda has tossed me into. I have to remember not to thank her when this is over.

  “So,” he says, handing me the menu, “what do you have a taste for?”

  I look down at the menu. But first I read how the chef has partnered with local farmers and growers so he’s able to produce dishes from items that’ve been grown in a sustainable and organic manner. Well, okay. That explains everything, but of course my eyes become transfixed when I see the Texas pecan French toast. However, I force myself to skip over it as well as the Belgian waffles with fresh berry cream and candied almonds and scroll down to the disgusting organic steel-cut oatmeal with brown cane sugar, walnuts, and golden raisins.

  “What appeals to you?”

  “Hard to choose.”

  “The French toast sounds like it should be ordered.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re on a diet.”

  I look over at him. Like: And so what if I am?

  “Come on, Georgia. You look good. Live. Anything else you see that you might like?”

  “Everything except oatmeal.”

  “I have never liked oatmeal. Do you like French toast?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Do you believe in sharing?”

  “Depends.”

  “How about I order the smoked-salmon Benedict and the French toast for you, and let’s have that ruby red juice to match your ruby lips? We can start with coffee. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “I try to be democratic about everything.”

  And he orders, and the coffee comes, and we sip. I’m trying to prepare myself for something outrageous, because I know it’s coming. I just do. But I decide to see if I can bring this fantasy down to reality, so I ask, “What have you been doing the last ten years of your life since your wife passed?”

  “Let’s cut right to it, then, shall we?” he says after he takes a sip of his juice. “Well, first of all, my wife didn’t die. She was killed. Drunk driver. We had no children together, because she fixed that before we met, but she had two sons when I met her, and I’m the only father they know. One lives in Miami and the other one in London. They’re thriving. Both in their mid-thirties.”

  He then takes a sip of his coffee and raises his hand to get a refill.

  “To be honest, we’d been thinking about divorcing but just never got around to it. We’d been together for more than twenty years. Anyway, it took me a couple of years to get used to being alone, living without her, and that’s when I knew it was time for me to make some dramatic changes in my life, so five years ago I retired from NASA and started working to clean up the neighborhood I grew up in, but I worked with real developers, and that’s pretty much it.”

  “That’s not all of it.”

  “You mean my personal life, of course. Okay. So suffice it to say I haven’t had one.”

  “You mean you haven’t dated or been in a relationship?”

  “I’ve been on dates. It’s different when you’re almost fifty and even more difficult at fifty-six.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Hold on a minute. Let me interject and ask, what’s your love life like? Are you dating?”

  “I have no love life. I don’t date because no one asks me out, and I don’t know how to flirt, and I’m too afraid to go online, and old men bore me, and I’m not a cougar, so it looks like I’ve pretty much been waiting for you.”

  And I cover my mouth. Oh, no, I didn’t just fucking say that! But then I burst into laughter.

  He bends over and kisses me on the lips, and his are now pink. I wipe them off with the burgundy napkin.

  “I can’t believe I just said that. I might have to take it back if we can go to the videotape.”

  “As my older son would say, ‘Shit happens for a reason,’ and this is no accident. I’ve read magazine articles about how people reunite with lovers from their past, going as far back as middle school and even kindergarten if you can believe that, but I never put much weight on it. First you have to find the person to see if you feel anything.”

  “I feel something.”

  “Then this is going to work,” he says, and they bring our meal, and we sit there and eat every bite.

  “You feel like walking?” he asks.

  “I almost walked this morning, but I’d love to walk again for real,” I say.

  “No. How about we take a drive across the Golden Gate and sit on a bench and then maybe do a little windsurfing with the sharks?”

  “Black people don’t windsurf,” I say sarcastically.

  “Black people do everything white people do, so let’s roll.”

  And off we go.

  The fog is almost gone, and it’s cold, but Stan was smart enough to bring a heavy trench coat. We turn into Vista Point and sit on the hood of the car and look out at the sailboats in the bay and San Francisco and Alcatraz, and down to our left is the tip of Tiburon and Belvedere. The sky is an unbelievable blue, and I know for a fact that this is the coolest dream I’ve had in years and that I do not want to wake up.

  “So when can you come to New York to spend some time with me?”

  “I’m spending time with you right now, Stan.”

  “You want to know how I live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait. Let me ask you. Do you travel much?”

  “Not as much as I’d like, but I’m hoping after I leave my practice I’ll have more time to, but how much I’ll be able to will be contingent on how I end up making a living. Answer your question?”

  “Yes it does. Okay. So I live in a hotel.”

  “Oh, Lord. Please don’t tell me it’s a shelter.”

  He’s shaking his head and smirking at the mere thought that I would think it.

  “I have plenty of shelter, and it’s on the thirty-sixth floor, and I’ve got a hundred-and-eighty-degree view of Manhattan and the Hudson River.”

  “What would make you want to live in a hotel?”

  “Because for years I lived in the big house with the yard and the pool and the three-car garage, and once I was in it alone, I realized what a waste of good space it was, and especially the energy and money it took to maintain it. Plus, I like to travel. I decided to be mobile, and this way I can do it. I love it.”

  “So do you have a kitchen?”

  He just looks at me and then pops me upside the head.

  “I think I do, but I’ve never cooked anything in it. Why? Do you cook?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you cook me something?”

  “Yes. In the future. If we have one,” I hear myself say.

  “Don’t you worry. The cards are in our favor.”

  “No comment. And how long do you plan on living this way?”

  “Until I drop dead or run out of money. I want to spend at least two to three months a year for the rest of my life seeing every single country I’ve always wanted to see, and living the way I do makes this very easy to accomplish.”

  “I actually think it’s pretty cool.”

  “I’m not saying I have to stay in five-star hotels everywhere I go. It’s the countries I want to see, not the hotels. It’s the people. And it’s been an eye-opener and, I believe, has saved my life.”

  I just look at him.

  “Don
’t you ever get bored?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Blue?”

  I nod.

  “And what do you do about it?”

  “It’s the reason I want to leave my practice.”

  “Are you really going to do it?”

  “I think so. Soon.”

  “You’re scared, though, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. But it’s not going to stop me.”

  “But don’t you think that’s a normal way to feel, considering you’re breaking a lot of the traditional rules of what’s supposed to happen when we reach middle age?”

  “Well, yeah. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

  “Yeah, well, when you didn’t eat that pizza with me that day, you were basically challenging me, and I can see that your spirit hasn’t been broken.”

  “I don’t think it has. I’m ready to just go for it.”

  “I think we’re both due for an adventure, and I want you to go on it with me.”

  “Sure, let me just run home and pack.”

  “I won’t disappoint you, Georgia. I guarantee you that. I think we’ve been waiting for each other.”

  “Maybe.”

  “How about this for our first one. Do you like mud?”

  “What?”

  “Mud? You know, as in mud baths?”

  “I’ve only done it a few times, but it was great.”

  “Then how about we drive over that hill to Calistoga, take a mud bath and a mineral steam, get massages, and then you come back to my hotel. We’ll order room service, you sleep next to me tonight, and then I’ll head back to New York, and you take as much time as you need to figure out if you want to hang out with me a little longer. If you’re not happy being with me, then it just means the dream wasn’t real. How about it?”

  “Damn.”

  “I was hoping more for a ‘Hell yeah,’ but I’ll let it slide,” he says, and takes my hand.

  I could not have made this shit up.

  We are both black for an hour.

  Then red for another.

  We are wrapped in thin flannel blankets like mummies and do not move until we’re unrolled. We find it impossible to open our mouths and utter so much as a syllable.

  We go our separate ways to our respective locker rooms, both shaking our heads because of how good we feel. I feel like I’ve lost about five pounds. My white towel is wrapped around my head like a turban, and my arms are so limp I can’t tie the sash on my white robe. I sink into a wicker chair and slowly inhale the scent of eucalyptus. I don’t think I exhale. Why haven’t I driven over here and done this more often? And Wanda, too, instead of spending so much time at those stupid outlets. But I don’t want to think about Wanda right now, although I know she’s going to freak out when I tell her what has happened to me in the past forty-eight hours. I’ll bet my cell phone has a thousand missed calls and two thousand texts. When I finally open my locker and look down at it, I see I wasn’t far off the mark. Her last text says: Birthday Huzzy, are you alive? Did you get kidnapped? That Stanley looks pretty damn good. I liked him. He’s not scared of you, which means he’s not going to take your shit. He’s the one. Nelson and I have a bet going at how long it’s going to take to make it legal. He gives it a year. I give it three months. I don’t like losing bets to Nelson. He never pays! Anyway, you knock the door down and call when you come up for air.

  I drop the phone back inside my purse and do my best to get dressed as fast as possible. When I look in the mirror, I notice that my hair has crinkled into a wild Afro, and I don’t have the strength to pull and stretch it into a ponytail. I opt for lip gloss versus the scarlet and make my way out into the lobby, but I don’t see Stan until I look outside. He’s sitting in one of those eighties wicker swings. I sit close to him, and we both just start swaying.

  “So, Ms. Georgia. I’m curious about this train ride you’re supposed to be taking.”

  I look at him like this couldn’t possibly be the first thing on his mind after what we just experienced.

  “Why a train?”

  “Because I saw it in a movie and I’ve had a fantasy about taking a long train ride ever since.”

  “So tell me, Ms. Georgia, where are you planning on going, and for how long, and when? Take your time answering.”

  “You are extremely nosy.”

  “I’m just curious.”

  “First of all, I’m going alone.”

  “You don’t say? I love it. So where to?”

  “Well, from here to Vancouver on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, and then I’d change to VIA Rail Canada and maybe spend the night in Vancouver and then travel all the way across to Montreal and down to Toronto and then New York City, where I’d shop and go to a few museums if I have any energy left, and then get on a giant bird and fly back to the Bay Area.”

  “Wow. That sounds very cool. So how long does this take?”

  “It depends. It could take as little as six days, up to twelve. I haven’t decided yet if I want to spend the night in Vancouver, because I can do the hop-on-hop-off thing on the train if I want to see the sites along the route, like Edmonton or Winnipeg.”

  “This sounds like a great adventure. Sometimes it’s good to experience some things alone.”

  “I’m glad you get it.”

  “I think it speaks volumes about you. So many people wouldn’t dream of doing something like this. I don’t want to say ‘women,’ because that would be sexist, but give me a pass this one time. Why Canada?”

  “Why not? Chances of my going there ever again in life are probably slim to zero, and also because it’s breathtakingly beautiful and it’s easy to get to from here.”

  “So why do you want to do this? I know it’s not just because you saw it in a movie. Spill it.”

  “Because I want to relax and read and think and dream and imagine my future, and maybe the train ride and the scenery will help me see what’s possible during the last third of my life. I want to talk to strangers. Look out the window for miles and see everything from the ocean to the mountains speed by. I really think of it as kind of a long, meditative prayer that I hope will help me not worry about the end of my life but encourage me to keep trying to live it more like it’s a verb instead of a noun.”

  He holds his fist out, and I press mine against his.

  I still think I may have said too much.

  But he asked.

  “If you think you wouldn’t mind some company along the way, you let me know. I’d love to catch up on some reading.”

  “We’ll see. Like I said, I don’t have a firm date yet.”

  “I’m not trying to pin you down, Miss Georgia. And to be honest, it sounds like you’d be better off doing most of this trip alone. So you let me know if and when you figure out when you’re going to get to Toronto, and if you still like me, I’ll meet you there, and maybe you can hang out with me in Manhattan for a few days. How’s that sound?”

  “You are extremely presumptuous, aren’t you?”

  “You haven’t seen anything. Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

  “I don’t know if I am or not.”

  “Well, how about we order room service when we get back to the hotel, unless you have other plans?”

  “I’m for lease all day,” I hear myself say.

  Lord, what has gotten into me?

  —

  The room is pretty.

  So are the drapes that I walk over to close.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s too much light in here.”

  “Really?”

  He sits on a candy-striped chair and crosses his legs. I just realized his eyes are almost cobalt blue. Probably because I’ve been avoiding them. I sit on a chair across the room. Same color.

  “So are you nervous about something?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask a stupid question, Stan. Maybe I should’ve gone home. Maybe I’m pushing my
luck. Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do yet.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “Well, you know what we’re going to do.”

  “No I don’t. We might have already done it.”

  “What?”

  “Made a connection. It feels healthy, and we don’t have to make love or have sex or…whatever you’re thinking—but it sure would be nice to hold you without all those clothes on.”

  I look down at my jeans and white pullover sweater and my sheer white socks inside my favorite loafers. Okay. So I didn’t dress like some sexual conquest, and it may very well have been deliberate. But I’m not prepared to undress in front of Stanley. In front of anybody.

  “I really would like to, but I’m a little nervous and very self-conscious.”

  “I’m not nervous, and you have absolutely nothing to be nervous about. But let me take a wild guess about why you’re so self-conscious. You probably think you need to lose a few pounds—which you do not—or you’ve got some cellulite and stretch marks and you don’t think you look appealing naked like you did when you were younger. Am I right?”

  “Yes. To almost all of the above. I don’t really want to lose weight.”

  “Well, that’s refreshing to hear.”

  “But the other stuff is right on.”

  “Get over it, Georgia. You’re beautiful.”

  “You get over it, Stan.”

  “Look, I love your round hips,” he says.

  And he stands up. I cross my legs and arms and wish I were a magician and could slide into the crease between these cushions, but I can’t.

  “You want to see my muffin top?”

  “No!” I yell, but it’s too late. He’s already pulling up his black sweatshirt to reveal a put-your-head-on-this beautiful chest with a few strands of gray hair on it, and I don’t see any fucking muffin top or love handles. He also has muscles on his biceps, which means he works out. What a liar!

  “A person could starve on that muffin.”

  “You need to be closer to see it,” and he walks over to me and takes me by the hands and pulls me up to a standing position and wraps his arms around me, and I swear to God, I’m almost ready to burst into tears I’m so scared and nervous and embarrassed, and he says, “Georgia, Georgia, Georgia. It’s so good to see you after all these years.”